Politics

Obanikoro used 3 aircraft to carry N1.2bn, bank official tells EFCC

Published

8 years ago

July 31, 2016

An official of Diamond Bank, Damola Otuyalo is said to have told the anti-graft agency that it took three aircraft for Musiliu Obanikoro to carry N1.2 billion arms deal money.

Olutayo, according to reports, allegedly told officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that he personally handed over the said money to the former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Obanikoro, and his son, Gbolahan.

The entire exercise, it was learnt was captured on a Closed Circuit Television.

The EFCC has claimed that the N1.2 billion was part of the N4.7 billion paid into the company account of Obanikoro’s sons by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) during the build-up to the Ekiti and Osun states governorship election in 2014.

Olutayo reportedly told EFCC investigators that on June 16, 2014, he received a call from the Head of Operations and Technology, Mr. Premier Oiwoh, to arrange N1.2 billion and pay the following recipients, Saturaki Bello N200 million; Yusuf Bulama N120 million; Chimenum Njoku N250 million; Franklin Tolani N150 million; Josiah Moses N280 and Abubakar Sadiq Zanna N200 million.

He said, “The beneficiaries were not available to be paid as I did not see them and I was later directed by Mr. Premier Oiwoh to move the money to the airport where I will be given further instruction.

“We moved the cash to the airport through the Cash-In-Transit vendor, Bankers Warehouse Limited. I contacted the vendor who made the bullion van available for movement. I personally supervised the loading of the money into the bullion van and escorted them to the airport…

“We loaded the first aircraft with money and Obanikoro flew with his friends on the first flight. The second aircraft was loaded with money but it could not carry all the cash due to the size of the aircraft and the weight it could carry.

“I recall that another aircraft was also used to move the final batch of the money from the bullion van. The second and third movements were supervised by Gbolahan after Obanikoro had left with the first flight.

“The operation took several hours because we got to the airport around 7am and left around 4pm. The cash was bagged in cash bags totaling about 65 and everything was offloaded from the bullion van after which I reported to my boss, Mr. Oiwoh.”

Senator Obanikoro is among those alleged to have received huge sum of arms deal fund from former NSA, which allegedly Governor Ayodele Fayose, Iyiola Omisore are part of the beneficiaries.

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